Vadim Gomolyaka was a Ukrainian Soviet composer, music teacher, and actor. He was born in Kyiv on October 17 (30), 1914, into a family of actors: his father was Boris Avsharov, also known as Gomolyaka, and his mother was Tatyana Zubkovskaya. From 1939 to 1941 he studied at the history and theory faculty of the Kyiv Conservatory, then studied composition at the Tashkent Conservatory from 1941 to 1942. He graduated from the Kyiv Conservatory in 1946, where he studied with Levko Revutsky.
Gomolyaka taught theoretical subjects at the Kyiv Conservatory from 1946 to 1948. From 1951 to 1956 he served as secretary of the USSR Union of Composers, and from 1958 to 1976 he headed the Administration of the Ukrainian branch of the USSR Music Fund.
His works included seven concertos, including concertos for oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, and trumpet; choral and symphonic works; ten pieces for violin and piano; romances, suites, and songs. His symphonic works included In Spain, In Moldova, In the Park of Eternal Glory, Oriental Miniatures, Carpathian Legend, and Romanian Rhapsody. His ballets included The Zaporozhians (1954), Sorochyntsi Fair (1956), Black Gold (1957), Puss in Boots (1958), Oksana (1964), Chasing Two Hares (1965), and Lybid (1973). He also wrote the musical comedies Alyonushka (1959) and The Nightingale at the Police Station (1964), and composed music for films including Blue Roads (1947), Maximka (1952), Olexa Dovbush (1959), and Chasing Two Hares (1961).
Gomolyaka was named an Honored Artist of the Ukrainian SSR in 1958 and received the third-degree Stalin Prize in 1951 for his symphonic suite Transcarpathian Sketches. He died in Kyiv on May 7, 1980, and was buried at Baykove Cemetery.